'Children of Men', the new Alfonso Cuaron sci-fi flick

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Yeah, the coolest thing about that bit -- thematically, visually, generally -- was that the guy sits and eats lunch with Guernica hanging over the table.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

it was all I could do not to sing along to King Crimson during that bit.

― TOMB07 (TOMBOT), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha I thought the Pink Floyd reference was too heavy-handed.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Though the broken David's prosthetic-style support was neat, too.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

No, I know there was a shot in the movie that looked like the cover to Animals thanks to the magic that is this thread, but I couldn't actually tell you which shot in the movie that was and it certainly didn't register while I was watching the movie.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:42 (seventeen years ago) link

i thought the pink floyd pig was absolute genius: dude saving as much of western art from the chaos as he can OF COURSE is into canon-rock!

― geoff (gcannon), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I thought the pig was a reference to some BritArt installation I'd never heard of.

i dunno i just got a "omg NY was nuked, no more babies, isnt that terrible!" --- it doesn't go beyond the cliches in that department really.

Is it a stretch to argue that those aren't the meat of the story, and thus their relative superficiality is irrelevant?

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

The film follows a linear narrative structure, and, as in any film that follows a linear narrative structure, there are only a certain number of combinations of tropes and patterns that it can employ without the underlying story architecture falling apart completely. Any movie that is attempting to be linear and has an ignorance of certain basic tenants of storytelling will just be a mess, or at the very least deeply unsatisfying. The path to avoiding cliche is through texture, detail and character. The underlying structure of a film can be millenia old (indeed, the underlying structure of most films IS millenia old), and still feel brand new to an audience if the smaller aspects are handled with thoughtfulness and invested with originality. A writer's not concealing anything from the audience when they do this, they're making the profoundly familiar resonate in new ways.

I have been reading McKee.

― chap (chap), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I read the Pink Floyd pig @ Battersea (i.e. "Ark of the Arts") as the bureaucrats of teh future holding up Pink Flody as revered, canonical British artists whose work must be preserved alonside Picasso et al. -- which I found wryly amusing and kind of apt in its banality.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:43 (seventeen years ago) link

BritArt = YBA

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I just thought of it as a visual pun, exposing both the desperation of the collector and the depravity of the uber-wealthy. I know nothing about Animals. I just hate PF.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I just got scared that, when they actually moved to another position to better frame the pig between the characters, we had a musical segue coming or something.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

wait wait i don't think the shot was trying to mimic a record cover, i think his cousin actually did save the actual old pink floyd pig, is the implication. it's a characterization, not a visual pun.

xpost yes elmo otm

― geoff (gcannon), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay so apparently I didn't even know what the Pink Floyd thing was about even with the magic that is this thread, that's how ~~stupid~~ non-nerdy I am.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Also J Animals is fucking awesome, don't hate.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Though I was more annoyed by the TELL involving Pink Floyd.

I thought it made complete sense that the annoying Ballard/Moorcock/prog-loving guy you knew in college would grow up to be a self-styled Last Man On Earth who barricaded himself in Battersea with whatever art he could pillage. The only way that scene could have been improved was if he was blasting King Crimson all over London and not just inside his lair.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

David->Guernica->Hipgnosis' Animals is a bit of diminishing cultural returns. I wouldn't take it to heart Dan.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Next time I watch the film (this weekend) I'll look out for it, but I imagine I'll agree with Fluffy bear hearts rainbow.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

wait wait i don't think the shot was trying to mimic a record cover, i think his cousin actually did save the actual old pink floyd pig, is the implication. it's a characterization, not a visual pun.

Yeah, but it still is actually mimicing the cover.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

What elmo said.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh it made sense, I just got scared when it wouldn't go away.

― Zwan (miccio), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't really fathom wanting to see this movie twice.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Or maybe I'm just sad that I'm the only one who thought "Hipgnosis!" before "Pink Floyd!", I guess I'm more Art Fag than Pop-prog Loser.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:49 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm sure that guy also had a poster of the pixelated Mona Lisa in his dorm room... Only now it's a prosthetic-equipped statue of David.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Dan, what PF should I listen to? i don't hear anything off the wall as music anymore, it's more like really tiresome iconography.

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Animals, for starters! John can give you better pointers because he has all of their shit (or at least he did in high school; he might front now like he never owned The Final Cut but I WAS THERE).

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Piper at the Gates of Dawn is the only PF album I've liked.

― milo z (mlp), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Meddle.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 22:59 (seventeen years ago) link

I was going to suggest Meddle but I couldn't remember what it sounded like.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:01 (seventeen years ago) link

I was totally immersed in the story the first time, except for a few probs already mentioned like the midwife speech and Theo hanging around to watch Jasper die instead of hoofing it. I want to see it again to see the long, long scenes again, and time them this time. The one near the end is one long scene from the point where Theo squeezes through the door (just before he clocks Sid) all the way through the battle until after he brings Kee out of the building, isn't it?

Also, where the fuck was the camera mounted in the long ambush scene? Nice bit of rigging to be able to shift POV from front seat to back and side to side, and shut up, I don't want to hear "they've been doing stuff like that for decades now haha" even if they have. I don't pay a lot of attention to technical aspects like that on first viewings, and I want to see this one again to pick its craft apart.

― do i have to draw you a diaphragm (Rock Hardy), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:06 (seventeen years ago) link

in the last long shot im pretty sure there is a cut hidden around the time they first enter the building...

― ryan (ryan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:40 (seventeen years ago) link

i was trying to keep track of that shot, but i couldn't! after a few minutes i noticed the blood was gone, and i kind of kicked myself

― geoff (gcannon), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:43 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah there's definitely a cut, cuz the blood comes off the lens.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:45 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, there's at least a cut when he rushes in after the explosion, because (a) the screen goes dark for a second when the camera passes over rubble in the foreground and (b) it's necessitated by the really graphic blood & make-up f/x when we see that dude still alive, blown in half, guts hanging out, etc.

still, it manages to maintain the immediacy in spite of / because of that transition, which is the effect of the long shot anyway. i guess i really liked the long shots because they were immersive in a way that jump-cut Requiem for a Dream style editing would just ruin.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:47 (seventeen years ago) link

-- do i have to draw you a diaphragm (crump...), Today 3:06 PM. (Rock Hardy)

When was the sunroof invented?

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 18 January 2007 23:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Here is how they exicuted the car scene: http://www.doggicam.com/twoaxisdolly.php

― Fleischhutliebe! like a warm, furry meatloaf (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 19 January 2007 00:55 (seventeen years ago) link

I was really hoping for a camera mounted on a dog's head based on the URL.

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:28 (seventeen years ago) link

rack focus, ubu, rack focus. good dog. *bark!*

― Zwan (miccio), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:35 (seventeen years ago) link

leghumpingcam.com

― milo z (mlp), Friday, 19 January 2007 03:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Nabisco, the cars all actually start quite quietly (I don't know why I noticed this); in the future, I think they're all electric or something. So it's not entirely unbelievable that he drives away unnoticed by the Fish.

Dr. Morbius, the name for Quietus comes from Hamlet (according to the New Yorker): "That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,/When he himself might his quietus make/With a bare bodkin?"

― max (maxreax), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:20 (seventeen years ago) link

thank you max :D

― AllyzayEisenschefterBDawkinsFlyingSquirrelRomoCrying.jpg (allyzay), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Hey, I just wanted to contribute.

― max (maxreax), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, Ally, I wasn't mocking that part! I actually spent a moment there thinking about car-noise and then thinking "cool, in the future cars are quiet." (Haha one of the 3 or 4 minor and ridiculously plausible "futuristic" technologies in there: I can't stress enough how much I appreciate acknowledgement that in the future we will surely live in the same old buildings we have for the last few hundred years.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:54 (seventeen years ago) link

yes that's a nice touch!

also, as my friend pointed out, they probably wouldn't bother to build a lot of new buildings what with the no future generations thing and all!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:56 (seventeen years ago) link

also this is one of the few sci-fi movies where it really makes sense that everybody listens to music from our time rather than some exotic new futuremusik; with no young people who's gonna make the new tunes? the music scene would be DECIMATED!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 19 January 2007 06:57 (seventeen years ago) link

bloodspatter was an accident, Cuaron says, digitally removed after awhile.

Thanks for the Hamlet thing, max. Will could've worked for Big Pharma today.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 January 2007 14:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Watching it the second time, I was looking out for the removal of the blood splatter--it happens right when the enter the building and he looks up the stairs, and it's totally seamless and works really well.

― max (maxreax), Friday, 19 January 2007 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link

I like unsettling, unsatisfying movies. It's the story that leaves questions unanswered, that challenges our perspectives on life, that I like best of all.

And if anybody needs any reassurance that "Children of Men" is a movie that has lasting impact, I point to this thread. What's the last individual movie to provoke this much thought and discussion, and this many responses?

― Hey Jude (Hey Jude), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Probably that gif of the dog eating its own sick.

― chap (chap), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:57 (seventeen years ago) link

oh random googler, you are a precious traet.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Friday, 19 January 2007 17:59 (seventeen years ago) link

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